Mission 5 Experience/Feedback

[Mistermann]

I’ll start off with this @ChillNG – this is one heck of a campaign experience!  This campaign is the first one of yours that I’ve purchased and played.  Based on the immersion, I am definitely going to pickup the Operation Cerberus North Campaign for the Hornet.

A few observations for you and anyone interested.

ATC

I love how immersive the custom ATC and general radio usage is.  Thank you for all this work!  I am coming here from @baltic_dragon excellent A-10C Iron Flag pt1 campaign where he does similar things with the radio and doesn’t use any “base” communications.  For future campaigns, it would be great to incorporate tower/departure/ground/arrival radio comms to make the immersion even more tangible. I got spoiled for sure in that Iron Flag experience.

I have noticed over the past couple of missions a requirement to Check-in with Overlord, but no requirement to “check-out”.  Not an IRL pilot here, so I don’t know if this is a real thing or not.  Seems like I should be checking out with Overlord before approaching Al Minhad.  Maybe I am missing a trigger?

Takeoff

Gunman 1-1 and 3-1 both takeoff heading West, yet ATC tells me to takeoff to the East.  Pretty odd holding short of runway 9 waiting for them to takeoff heading towards me.  It was cool to see it, but strange for me to takeoff opposite of them. 

Marshall Stack

Spoiler

Thanks for putting this together the way you did.  I flew trail off of Gunman 1-1 until they started their hold at which point I descended to my assigned altitude and entered my right hand stack hold.  This experience was darn cool!  Lots of air traffic and general nervousness on my part being concerned about AI midair collisions.  Probably the exact emotions you were looking for us to experience.  I even saw a B-1 in the stack at one point.  Very neat.

JTAC

I know this is something you’ve worked hard on and it shows!  Having what feels like real people on the ground really cranks up the emotions.  Hearing WINTER! WINTER! WINTER! from the JTAC when I mistakenly approached on a poor heading was awesome.  Having them react to good hits is a real nice touch.  Thanks for all your hard work on the JTAC. 

9-Line - Virtual Reality

As an exclusive VR pilot I often have to consult the message history in order to get coordinates.  It would be really nice if you left the coordinates on screen until the player dismisses them via spacebar.  I know I can go back into F10 and look, but that’s less than optimal IMHO.  And even when going to F10, the 9-Line disappears from screen after a short amount of time.  Just thinking a pilot dismissal key would be a good compromise for those of us in VR.  Maybe something to consider for future campaigns?

Chimney Targets

Spoiler

The last JTAC experience over Qeshm City was more nerve-wracking that you likely intended.  The JTAC’s description of the building was very confusing to me.  I never did see the “2 chimneys”.  Given there was really only one building between the BRDM and the Trucks made me reasonably confident that I targeted the proper building.  The time from pickle to impact slowed down significantly for me as I agonized over dropping on the wrong target.  I shacked the right one based on JTAC response.  I am wondering if you intended to give the player a bit of doubt in this engagement with the chimney reference.  If so, great!  If not, maybe a pleasant unintended element.  I never did see 2 chimney columns. 

 

Time of Day

Loved flying back as the sun set.  Experiencing this in 2.8 with new clouds and PG lighting is beyond words.  I also fly exclusively in VR which takes your missions and cranks them to 11 – especially the ones at night.

Wingman landing

I know this is a DCS AI issue but thought I'd share what happened here nonetheless.  By the time I got back to Al Minhad, it was night.  Coming in on final, I am concentrating on AoA and PAPI lights.  To my surprise, I see my Wingman’s landing lights in my peripheral vision right next to me on my left (probably 50 feet off my wingtip).  Heartrate immediately jumps up as I don’t need Mono taking me out after 90 minutes and a successful mission.  We’re probably 5 miles out at this point.  I decide to circle and let him land.  What’s he do?  He circles with me! 

So I’ve got a wingman who wants to do a formation landing at night.  I get back on course and now add watching him to my already oversaturated SA.  He’s bouncing all over the place vertically, but isn’t drifting over towards me.  I am giving him plenty of room on the left to land.  I am going to land as right of centerline as I can and just hope he doesn’t opt for a centerline landing.  Maybe 4000’ from the threshold, his SA is overwhelmed and he lands unintendedly and explodes in a massive fireball (lighting pretty cool in the cockpit and outside as well).  I land and finish the mission with a little extra unintended pyrotechnics. 

Looking forward to the next mission @ChillNG – looks like a LONG one.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Mistermann

[ChillNG]

On 12/23/2022 at 4:59 PM, Mistermann said:

I’ll start off with this @ChillNG – this is one heck of a campaign experience!  This campaign is the first one of yours that I’ve purchased and played.  Based on the immersion, I am definitely going to pickup the Operation Cerberus North Campaign for the Hornet.

A few observations for you and anyone interested.

ATC

I love how immersive the custom ATC and general radio usage is.  Thank you for all this work!  I am coming here from @baltic_dragon excellent A-10C Iron Flag pt1 campaign where he does similar things with the radio and doesn’t use any “base” communications.  For future campaigns, it would be great to incorporate tower/departure/ground/arrival radio comms to make the immersion even more tangible. I got spoiled for sure in that Iron Flag experience.

I have noticed over the past couple of missions a requirement to Check-in with Overlord, but no requirement to “check-out”.  Not an IRL pilot here, so I don’t know if this is a real thing or not.  Seems like I should be checking out with Overlord before approaching Al Minhad.  Maybe I am missing a trigger?

Takeoff

Gunman 1-1 and 3-1 both takeoff heading West, yet ATC tells me to takeoff to the East.  Pretty odd holding short of runway 9 waiting for them to takeoff heading towards me.  It was cool to see it, but strange for me to takeoff opposite of them. 

Marshall Stack

  Hide contents

Thanks for putting this together the way you did.  I flew trail off of Gunman 1-1 until they started their hold at which point I descended to my assigned altitude and entered my right hand stack hold.  This experience was darn cool!  Lots of air traffic and general nervousness on my part being concerned about AI midair collisions.  Probably the exact emotions you were looking for us to experience.  I even saw a B-1 in the stack at one point.  Very neat.

JTAC

I know this is something you’ve worked hard on and it shows!  Having what feels like real people on the ground really cranks up the emotions.  Hearing WINTER! WINTER! WINTER! from the JTAC when I mistakenly approached on a poor heading was awesome.  Having them react to good hits is a real nice touch.  Thanks for all your hard work on the JTAC. 

9-Line - Virtual Reality

As an exclusive VR pilot I often have to consult the message history in order to get coordinates.  It would be really nice if you left the coordinates on screen until the player dismisses them via spacebar.  I know I can go back into F10 and look, but that’s less than optimal IMHO.  And even when going to F10, the 9-Line disappears from screen after a short amount of time.  Just thinking a pilot dismissal key would be a good compromise for those of us in VR.  Maybe something to consider for future campaigns?

Chimney Targets

  Reveal hidden contents

The last JTAC experience over Qeshm City was more nerve-wracking that you likely intended.  The JTAC’s description of the building was very confusing to me.  I never did see the “2 chimneys”.  Given there was really only one building between the BRDM and the Trucks made me reasonably confident that I targeted the proper building.  The time from pickle to impact slowed down significantly for me as I agonized over dropping on the wrong target.  I shacked the right one based on JTAC response.  I am wondering if you intended to give the player a bit of doubt in this engagement with the chimney reference.  If so, great!  If not, maybe a pleasant unintended element.  I never did see 2 chimney columns. 

 

Time of Day

Loved flying back as the sun set.  Experiencing this in 2.8 with new clouds and PG lighting is beyond words.  I also fly exclusively in VR which takes your missions and cranks them to 11 – especially the ones at night.

Wingman landing

I know this is a DCS AI issue but thought I'd share what happened here nonetheless.  By the time I got back to Al Minhad, it was night.  Coming in on final, I am concentrating on AoA and PAPI lights.  To my surprise, I see my Wingman’s landing lights in my peripheral vision right next to me on my left (probably 50 feet off my wingtip).  Heartrate immediately jumps up as I don’t need Mono taking me out after 90 minutes and a successful mission.  We’re probably 5 miles out at this point.  I decide to circle and let him land.  What’s he do?  He circles with me! 

So I’ve got a wingman who wants to do a formation landing at night.  I get back on course and now add watching him to my already oversaturated SA.  He’s bouncing all over the place vertically, but isn’t drifting over towards me.  I am giving him plenty of room on the left to land.  I am going to land as right of centerline as I can and just hope he doesn’t opt for a centerline landing.  Maybe 4000’ from the threshold, his SA is overwhelmed and he lands unintendedly and explodes in a massive fireball (lighting pretty cool in the cockpit and outside as well).  I land and finish the mission with a little extra unintended pyrotechnics. 

Looking forward to the next mission @ChillNG – looks like a LONG one.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!  There's some really valid constructive feedback in there, the good news is a lot of it is stuff I agree with and refined during the rest of Persian Freedom and onto further campaigns.